1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photographic printing method and, more particularly, to a photographic printing method which uses photographing data recorded in a recording medium by a camera, thereby facilitating the making of high quality photographic prints.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, thanks to the automatization of exposure control and/or focusing in cameras, anyone can take pictures at an appropriate photographic condition including aperture size and shutter speed. This is especially true when one uses an expensive high grade camera such as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2-63029, which uses IC cards each memorizing an optimum photographic condition for a specific kind of scene, so that one can automatically take pictures in a manner as if taken with complex and difficult manual techniques. On the other hand, thanks to improvements in photographic films and papers, as well as progress in developing and printing techniques, the standard of quality of finished prints has been remarkably improved.
As a result, the quality of a print of a picture taken by an inexpensive camera almost compares with that taken by an expensive, high grade camera. However, in conventional automatic printing, print-exposure is uniformly controlled based on the condition of each picture recorded on the photographic film, according to a standardized control program, irrespective of the situation of each picture and the photographer's intention. Therefore, the finely controlled photographic conditions of a picture taken by a high grade camera and the photographer's intent will not be sufficiently reflected in the print.
Furthermore, automatic printing cannot yet make full use of the improved properties of the photosensitive materials.
In order to make prints which meet the photographer's intention as closely as possible, it has been suggested to record various photographic data concerning an individual picture, such as the photographing date and time of the picture, the shutter speed and aperture size used to take the picture, on a photographic film by a camera on taking the picture (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications Nos. 51-117632, 59-214023, 64-6933, 63-201645, 49-74019, 55-101932, and 54-2115, and Japanese Laid-open Utility Model Publication No. 63-188644).
Cameras which record data indicative of the kind of illumination light of each picture on photographic films are known (e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications Nos. 51-117632 and 52-30429). Also, cameras which record data about trimming are known (e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications Nos. 63-298233 and 64-21432). Cameras recording characters indicating the kind of scene and other information optically on a photographic film are also known (e.g., Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications Nos. 50-30517, 55-101932 and 54-2115).
However, because the above-mentioned known cameras record photographic data in many different ways, the photographic data can only be utilized in specific printers which are individually designed. Although it has been suggested to record such various photographic data as above in the form of codes on magnetic recording tracks provided on the film surface in PCT/US 89/04366, the prior art does not teach how to utilize the photographic data recorded as codes. Therefore, it is still impossible to utilize the photographic data totally and universally in printing.
Furthermore, because the above-described high grade cameras using an IC card lack a medium for transmitting the specific photographic conditions used to a photofinishing laboratory, a print made from a picture taken by such a high grade IC card camera will not always reflect the high grade photographic technique.
Also known are cameras which detect respective conditions of pictures recorded on a photographic film to determine, for example, color temperature, whether flash light was used or not, whether the flash light was over or under, whether exposure was over or under, and so forth, and record the determined data on a recording medium so as to utilize the data in printing (Japanese Laid-open Patent Publications Nos. 1-280730, 1-280731, 1-280732, 1-280733, 1-293329, 1-296230, 1-297634, 1-302336 and 2-56534). However, because cameras are not large enough in size to incorporate an operating device which performs a complex algorithm, it is possible that the camera may make an erroneous judgment, for example, in determining the kind of light source based on the detected data. Therefore, the judgment by the camera lacks reliability. Furthermore, the need for providing the operating device increases the cost of the camera.